


Whim and Want

by softsylvie



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: hashtag bring back white hat's glorious hair, homage to white hat's glorious hair i'm not sorry, idk i was in a spaghetti western mood i guess, more eldritch things hangin out whoops, oh yeah and black hat is creepy af but what else is new, ok i'll be quiet now, put into a more wild west setting??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softsylvie/pseuds/softsylvie
Summary: A wistful morning out west doesn't have to be so lonely.They meet as they always have.  Another time, another place, this one smelling of bourbon, guns and leather.





	Whim and Want

Black Hat is flinging cards haphazardly across the table.  It’s a particularly lonesome game of Solitaire in the back corner if there ever was one, but to hell with it, not like he has much to gain in a round of poker with anyone in Lowstone, anyway. 

Half the patrons are passed out.  It’s that awkward in-between hour of 5 AM where people are strung out and red-eyed with whiskey and peyote on their breaths.  It’s silent now, but it had been one hell of a party full of drink, too much to drink, it was _always_ too much to drink.  Black Hat may or may not have done a bit of foul whispering on his part.  And _maybe_ he’d planted a couple of extra cards in a couple of games where they didn’t belong ( _whoops,_ how did the extra ace get into _that_ ranch hand’s sleeve in that game of poker, the world may never know!). 

  Drink and cards had rolled quite swimmingly from there into punches, the threat of drawn iron, someone’s face being bashed bloody against the stage ledge where a harlot in some foofy red number that made her look like an ostrich had fallen screaming mid-performance.  Blood and bourbon still slick the floorboards.  Black Hat hadn’t laughed that hard in _ages,_ but all good things must come to an end, or so they were fond of saying. 

It’s now the hour where every draw of the cards echoes, and the smells of piss and regret and sweaty work on the ranch come up strong through the beer and sawdust.  Even Mitch “88 Fingers” has slumped over the horse-teeth of his piano, cowhide bowler tipped back on his head and slobber pearling from the corner of his mouth.

Black Hat flings a jack, ten, and a nine beneath a queen he has on one row.  A tap at the deck, and the eight he needs rolls easily as oil up on his fingers. 

 _Very_ convenient.

Oh you bet your ass he’s cheating, don’t hold your breath, cupcake.  But what of it?  For all of Flug’s talk of skill at these inane games, he misses the point: villains cheat.

Still, it’s a fitting game he’s playing here on the brink of dawn while he lifts his eyes to the dusty batwing doors on the other side of the saloon.  Solitaire is one of those deceptive, unforgiving games.  It’s a game that comes without the promise of winning if only you try hard enough.  One fucked up draw, and your entire game is dead _unless_ you cheat.  

Now how’s _that_ for a game that shows you the way of the world? 

The batwings swing open, announcing the arrival of his company rather promptly, despite the silence in his movements. 

Black Hat rolls his eyes, flinging another card.  Of _course_ he’d move out of consideration for drunkards that cheat at cards, while literally shooting one another for cheating at cards.  Then he lifts one ascertaining look at White Hat, and he can’t contain a bark of laughter.  It goes up like the snarls of a strangled alligator in the 5 AM quiet.

White Hat shakes his head, moving his hands in sharp gestures.  “Keep your voice down!”

“Forget the noise, you fucking twat,” Black Hat cackles, slapping his cards down.  “What in the name of every ring of every Hell have you done?  Is that _hair?_ ”

White Hat huffs indignation.  Flowing from beneath his signature white ranch hat are waves of golden locks, shiny as honey, free as silk down both shoulders.  “How very kind of you to notice.”

“You look like a ponce!  A dickhead!”

“And you look every part the ornery rustler,” White Hat replies, speaking in the driest of tones.  “I suppose it’s good to know you’ve learned no subtlety since the last time we met.”

“Right, right.  Because subtlety is what _I_ go for.”  Black Hat grins, showcasing narrow rows of teal fangs that complement the red bandana looped around his neck rather nicely.  He’s subtle enough for his own purposes.  His face is always dimmed by the shade of his black leather traveler’s hat and the poor lamplight of his corner in _Jaseo’s_.  It’s always smudgy to the occasional farmer or gunslinger that comes to his table.  Always shifting, they whisper to one another as they leave in a sudden hurry.  It’s _just_ subtle enough to ensure they never stick around long.  “Care for a round, White?  Come on.  When’s the last time you’ve played?”

“You cheat.”

“Oh, now, who told you that?”

White Hat presses on, unamused, “And here I thought you wanted to meet for a reason?”

“You’re all business, all work, all the time, aren’t you?”  Still grinning, Black Hat scoops the cards up in one suavely fluid motion.  One card dances in quick turns between his fingers, flashing glossy blue crosshatching and the ever suicidal king of hearts.  “Come on, I might not even _cheat_ this time…”  He breaks off into that gravelly laughter again.  “Nope.  Couldn’t keep a straight face.”

“The answer is no.”

“Fine.  Drink, then?”

“I’ll take whiskey.”

Black Hat raises his prominent brows, grin almost sprouting clear off his face.  “ _Whiskey,_ now?  I have to say, the west’s done nothing but good for you, White.  Here I expected you to ask if they serve a good chamomile, for bloody’s sake.”

White Hat shrugs as he pulls a chair out at Black’s table.  “I can get into the spirit of things when I care to,” he says in an even voice.  “Let me know the cost though, please.  I’ll be leaving it on the counter.”

Black Hat grumbles something about White Hat shoving that money up his own arse and obliges, manifesting a pair of icy glasses with a snap of his fingers.  The whiskey fills them with a dull trickle, deep amber fire, guaranteed to burn the whole way down.  Black Hat practically flings White’s glass at him before lifting his own, rattling the ice with a musical clink.  “Cheers, fuckface.”

“Language.”

“Chop off that hair and _then_ you can lecture me about obscenities.”  Black Hat whips the glass back and downs half his drink in a single draft.  Oh, burn it does.  It’s grade A coffin varnish, the stuff of the mixing barrel under the bar that makes the saloon an extra penny and gives it the delicate bouquet of dirty kerosene.

White Hat’s eyes widen around his mouthful, and he can’t seem to help gagging as it staggers down.  He rams his fist into his chest, ignoring his dubious twin’s delighted snicker.  “My goodness, they’ll sell just about _anything_ this far out here, won’t they?  I suppose it’s a good thing I’ve rolled into town.”

“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about,” Black Hat drawls.  “I’m sure you’ve guessed that I’m not here to compliment your ascot.”

A flick of his hand, and the suicidal king spins across the table between White Hat’s elbows.  The king looks back up at the multiverse’s ancient light with waxy, empty eyes.

White Hat chances a slow look up.  He smiles, of all things.  “A welcome to town,” he says with bare trace of irony.  “How considerate.”

The supervillain tents his fingers in front of him.  All the elemental humor in Black Hat’s expression has withered with a blink of shadow, passing in the buildup to this moment, another smudge under the brim of his namesake.  Time to get down to business.  “You know who you’re dancing with, White.  And as it happens, my patience has its limits.  You decide to get involved, that’ll be it for this dump.”

One snap of his fingers, a snap that cracks like a bullwhip in the ending night, and the king of hearts is engulfed in flame.  Another snap, and the rest of the king’s row shares his fate in an orange and black puff.

This isn’t the end of those cards, per se.  The glowing gray lace of their ashes starts to spin, fluttering apart and drawing back together again, shuffling across the middle of the table like tiny dust devils.  The ashes of the cards reshape themselves with eerie precision.  The boxed shape of _Jaseo’s_ , first, then Ronnie Jackson’s General Store, then the jail, then the old church, and the Bell Horn ranch and the Crescent River farms to the northwest beyond.     

“Flames are right pretty things, aren’t they?” Black Hat remarks smoothly.  “Be a shame to see how this town would look in them.”

A dismissive wave, and the little town folds as it would in the punishing winds of a twister.

His point made, the ancient evil waits, watches.  With baited breath and anticipation that pulls him to the balls of his feet, almost.  Time to see if what he’s come here for is worth it.  Time to see if centuries apart have done their damage.  Time to see if the ol’ bull of light still has his _cojones_ on him.  For how lightly White’s been treading, he half expects some cobbled milquetoast lecture about fire hazards indoors.    

White Hat beholds this spectacle with a quirked brow.  He sits back in his chair, arms folded and his smile only growing.  “You always _were_ a theatrical one, weren’t you?”

“You’ll enjoy the real thing a lot more if it comes to that, White,” Black Hat replies, his old humor restored and absurd satisfaction welling in the void where his heart theoretically should be.  He’s not disappointed by his lookalike’s response, not in the least.  “Guarantee it!  Have your fun with a harlot, roast a marshmallow over her head after, it’ll make for one hell of a postcard.”

“And then you made it horrible.”

“It’s what I do, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”  White Hat sighs, shaking his head in the exasperated way of every parent at their estranged children.  “But you know, once, just once, it would be nice to simply chat, Black.  It doesn’t _have_ to keep coming to this, you know that, don’t you?  We don’t _have_ to keep… _struggling_ like this.  It didn’t used to—”

“Ah, stop.  Right there.”  Black Hat holds out a pair of admonitory fingers.  The feral edges of his grin and the glint of his eyes are more shark-like than ever.  Another change, another twist.  Another candlelight smudge beneath that dark leather brim.  Absently, he swipes up the cards and begins to shuffle them.  “You know we’ve gone beyond that point, White.  You know _why._ Question is, the ones you save, the ones who shower you in all those fucking roses, do _they_ know?”

Whatever White may be thinking, however hard that barb hits, he doesn’t rise to the bait.  He glares back at him, unfettered.  “Well, I suppose there’s something admirable in that sort of honesty, coming from you.  You don’t see it very often, after all.”

The cards crackle in their dance between Black Hat’s nimble hands.  “However honest I may be, mate, you might want to think twice before granting me that much.”  To Black Hat’s own credit, he doesn’t _want_ that commendation.  He’s never needed anything from his twin at all, and that’s the point.  “I’ve still got quite a few cards to play, and we have a hell of a long wait until last call.  You’ll find out.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, dear.” 

There’s no shortage of sparked flint in the hero’s gaze.

Black Hat couldn’t have asked for much more.  It had been their understanding since the very beginning, after all.  Before the Bastion Nexus, before their departure, all the beast could have wanted was _something, anything_ to keep the engine running.  Black Hat supposes, in his own fundamentally twisted way, that this indulgence is all he has after bashing down heroes and rotting the last threads of good in decent folk.  A beast that sits fat and content in his domicile is eventually caged, and however soaring his confidence, it’s this bit of personal scripture that’s kept Black Hat whetting his skill at hating the multiverse and all its worlds before him.

A _need?_ By every ring of Hell, no. 

But it’s a _very_ particular and _very_ specific want, one that only the hero before him seems able to step up and provide.  Dealing with the adversity of a bunch of idiots for a staff can only get him so far.

“What do you think, White?  Still want to dance?” Black Hat asks, and in the dim glow of the oil lamps, his face is a monstrous sight of hunger.  His jaw bones protrude with a sickening crack, his visible eye retreats into the socket, skirted by the skitter of centipede legs.  His teeth, drawing ever thinner and sharper, consume over half his face as they spread into snaggled rows.

It’s the expectant, typically unfathomed grin of a dragonfish leering back at White Hat. 

Still want to dance, indeed.

And in kind, White Hat sits ramrod straight in his chair.  There are no wings, no pearly lights, no haloes. 

“ **I welcome the challenge,** ” White Hat replies, and the diatonic chords of upward creation resonate like church bells in his voice.  Black Hat doesn’t even flinch in the face of it, though he does find himself annoyed.  Just like that, the music of his twin’s answer has erased the waiting hangovers in all the patrons, healed the brain damage of the accosted ranch hand, set right the broken ankle of that fallen harlot.

Goddamn, is he _really_ going to have to go back and recover that work?  No huge loss, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Nevertheless, Black Hat smirks, his features whispering away in another flicker of the lamps.  Just like that, the beast that’s haunting so many sleeping heads tonight has vanished.  It’s back to the serpentine face, the façade of what is supposed to be a man, though it fools no man, not in mind or in heart.  They all _know,_ even if they can’t _guess._

But, well, principle of the thing.

“Then I’ll see you on the other side of the fires, White.” 

Black Hat flicks one final card at his twin, the ace of spades.    

White Hat chuckles bitterly.  The gesture isn’t lost on him.  “Keep it classy, dear.”  He stands.  “Though let’s try not to end up dueling at high noon.  I can’t imagine how it would terrify them.”

“It’d be half the bloody fun, I’d say.”

“Mm.  We’ll see how far things get.”

And just like the witching hour had come and gone in its blood and punches, White Hat sweeps on out of the saloon, tossing his fare onto the bar for his drink.  A drink he didn’t even enjoy, but he pays just the same.  Black Hat toys with the idea of swiping up the money, but decides against it as he stands to greet the gray morning daylight blotting out the last stars.  He’s a businessman, for Hell’s sake, he has more dignity than scooping up chump change.

Not to mention the deal he has with a few rustlers and cutthroats ten miles beyond Crescent River will win him more than a few drinks.  If Flug and that bear of his haven’t fucked things up by now, anyway, but Black Hat’s learned to factor that into his dealings by now.  Despite the constancy of his thrumming evil, he _is_ more adaptable sort than most give him credit for.

Evil undergoes the beatings and savagery of evolution, just like everything alive in the multiverse.

 _And it’s always a shame when it goes untested,_ he tells himself, as White Hat takes off to pen his half of their next chapter.  Ironic, really.  It’s the most boring, massive work of stalemate after stalemate, matching power for power, but he supposes to those in the fabric it’s a lot more engaging.

It’s why he’s sticking around here, after all.

Eventually, one of them has to write the ending.

                 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thanks for reading!!
> 
> any concrit or attention is greatly appreciated! until next time! <3


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